Galvanized supply that runs brown on Monday mornings. A cast-iron lateral that roots find every autumn. A water heater in a basement corner nobody has looked at since 2009. Tell us what's happening and we'll put your job in front of Portland plumbers who work on houses like yours every week.
Water you cannot shut off, sewage rising through a basement floor drain, or a leak soaking framing are same-day problems, because the cost of waiting is measured in drywall rather than pipe. A dripping tap, one slow drain, or a toilet you can isolate at its stop valve can safely wait for regular hours and cost far less.
The plumbers in this network cover the ordinary and the urgent: dripping angle stops, running toilets, kitchen drains that gurgle, hose bibs split by a hard freeze, repiping a house off galvanized, and swapping a tank heater for a tankless or heat-pump unit. Sewer work — camera inspection, spot repair, full lateral replacement — is its own specialty and we route it to crews with the equipment.
Inner Portland is threaded with cast-iron and, in a few pockets, original clay laterals running under mature street trees. Roots enter at the joints, the line bellies, and the first symptom is usually a basement floor drain backing up during a November storm. A camera run costs a fraction of a dig and tells you whether you're looking at a hydro-jet, a spot repair, or a pipe burst under the parking strip.
Every plumber matched here holds current Oregon licensing and carries insurance, checked before your request reaches them. That matters most on the jobs that need a permit and an inspection — water heaters, repipes, sewer work — where an unlicensed cash bid turns into a problem the day you list the house.
Your description goes to a short list of plumbers suited to the job, so the quotes you get back address the same scope. Ask each one what happens if they open the wall and find something worse — the answer separates a fixed price from an optimistic one.
Portland's housing stock reads in layers, and each layer fails in its own way. Pre-war bungalows and foursquares usually started with galvanized supply and cast-iron waste, so the story there is rusty water, pressure that dies at upstairs fixtures, and pinhole leaks arriving in clusters. Post-war houses through the sixties often have copper, which lasts well but suffers at fittings and where it was run through crawlspaces without insulation. Seventies and eighties additions can hide polybutylene, which is worth identifying because it fails without warning. Newer work is mostly PEX, easy to repair and easy to run. Telling a plumber the build decade and what you can see in the crawlspace or basement gets you a far more honest first estimate than a photograph of a puddle.
Describe your project once and we help connect your request with relevant local contractors who serve your area. The request is free, there is no obligation to hire, and you decide whether anyone is right for the job.
Water heaters, repipes, and most drain alterations are permitted through Portland Permitting & Development. Sewer laterals add a second wrinkle: the city owns the main, you own the lateral out to it, and work in the right-of-way needs its own approval. A plumber who does this regularly will already know which street your block drains toward.
Bungalow and foursquare basements across the eastside sit low, with floor drains tied straight into the lateral and no backwater valve. In a heavy storm, a partially blocked line pushes water up through that drain first. Adding a backwater valve during other sewer work is one of the cheaper pieces of peace of mind available in this city.
Plumbing work done for compensation in Oregon requires a CCB-licensed contractor regardless of how small the job is, and the individual doing the work needs the appropriate plumbing licence on top of that. Someone advertising without a licence number is uninsured, unbonded, and outside the CCB dispute process if the work fails. Both registries are free to search, and checking takes about a minute — considerably less time than arguing about a flooded floor afterwards.
| Situation | Urgency | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Water you cannot stop | Emergency | Damage compounds hourly |
| Sewage at the basement floor drain | Emergency | Health hazard, and the lateral is blocked |
| Water heater leaking from the tank | Same day | The tank is finished and will get worse |
| Every drain in the house slow | Next day | Main line restriction, camera it before it backs up |
| No hot water, no leak | Next day | Liveability, not damage |
| Dripping tap or running toilet | Regular hours | Costs pennies to wait, batch it with other jobs |
Standard service calls commonly start around $100–$200 for the visit, with hourly rates typically in the $125–$200 range once work begins. A straightforward tank water heater replacement often lands between $1,800 and $3,200 installed and permitted; heat-pump and tankless units run higher and may need electrical or gas changes. Sewer camera inspections are frequently a few hundred dollars, while full lateral replacement in an older neighbourhood can reach five figures once excavation and restoration are counted. Treat any sewer bid given without camera footage as a guess.
Roots in the lateral, again. The plumber camera'd it, showed me the belly on screen, and quoted a spot repair instead of the full replacement I was braced for.
Old gas heater died on a Friday. New one in and permitted by Saturday afternoon, strapped properly, and he hauled the rusted tank away.
Brown water out of the taps every Monday morning from the old galvanized lines. He repiped the supply in stages so we were never without water overnight.
Usually not. When every fixture drains poorly at once, the restriction is downstream in the main line or the lateral, not in a single trap. That's a camera job before it's a snake job — the footage tells you whether roots, grease, or a collapsed section is the culprit.
Yes. Replacement is permitted work, and the inspection covers seismic strapping, the relief line, venting, and combustion air on gas units. Seismic strapping in particular is not optional here, and it's the first thing an inspector looks at.
If you're seeing rusty water, failing pressure at upper-floor fixtures, and a second pinhole leak in a year, patching is throwing money at a pipe that's failing everywhere at once. Most homeowners repipe in stages, often starting with the runs already exposed during another project.
Disconnect and drain hose bibs before the first hard freeze, insulate the runs in crawlspaces and unheated garages, and leave a cabinet door open under sinks on exterior walls. Our cold snaps are short but sharp, and split hose bibs are the single most common January call.
In most Portland houses it is either at the meter near the kerb, needing a meter key, or just inside where the supply enters the basement or crawlspace. Find it now and turn it to confirm it actually moves, because a valve untouched for twenty years frequently seizes, and discovering that while water runs through a ceiling is the worst possible moment. Do the same for the stop valves under sinks and behind toilets.
House-wide loss usually points at the pressure regulator, a partly closed main valve, or scaling inside old galvanised supply, which narrows from the inside until hot water at an upstairs shower is a trickle. Loss at one fixture only is nearly always that fixture's aerator or cartridge. Establishing which you have takes a minute and is the difference between a ten-minute job and a repipe conversation.
Nothing. Describing the project and receiving quotes is free, and there is no fee if you hire someone. You pay your contractor for the work, and that is the entire arrangement.
Usually two to four, matched on trade, project size and whether they genuinely work your area. Only those matched to your job see your details — we do not resell requests.
A couple of minutes gets your job to licensed Portland plumbers with the right van and the right schedule. Quotes are free and you're never obligated.
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